158 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



The President. Mr. Carter, would you call the Pribilof Islands the 

 home of those seals. You have explained the anivium revertcndi in such 

 a way as to lead us to suppose that the animal which reverts to its usual 

 haunts, reverts m some measure to its home. Would you say the same 

 for the seals? 



Mr. Carter. I call the Pribilof Islands their home. I am not par- 

 ticular about the name which is ap])lied to it. You may call it their 

 place of resort, their breedinf;- ground, or what not. Whatever you 

 choose to call it, the fact is clear that tliey go there for the purposes of 

 breeding; they stay there live months in the year; they bring forth 

 their young there; and you can go there and easily separate the super- 

 Huous males from the rest of the herd, for the purpose of affording 

 them to the commerce of the world. The name is of course unimpor- 

 tant. It is the facts which determiue the (juestion. 



I have said that these doctrines are clear upon the settled rules of 

 municipal law; and for reasons which we find plainly apparent in the 

 doctrines of municipal law. But I am not disi)0sed to leave the ques- 

 tion there; because the argument can be strengthened. I have said 

 nothing about the original principles and rules upon which the institu- 

 tion itself of ])roperty slands. The institution of property is anterior 

 to municipal law, or anterior, at least, to any considerable degree of 

 develoi)ment of that law. It is assumed to exist by munici])al law ; and 

 it is oidy in these comparatively rare instances, exceptional instances, 

 such as swans and bees, pigeons and deer, that the question of the 

 foundation of the institutioii of property has been inquired into by those 

 who administer the nuinicii)al law. There are those instances; but 

 what if we should incpiire into the foundations of i)roperty generally, 

 and see what the reasons are which suj^port it? Why is it that the 

 institution of property exists at all! Why is it that one man is per- 

 mitted to own one hundred thousand acres, if you please, of the earth's 

 surface, and another man have not where to lay is head! Why is it 

 that society peiMuits one man to hold, and defends him in holding, store- 

 houses, whole magazines of i)rovisions while another is starving- for 

 hunger? Those things cannot be arbitrary. iSuch an institution can- 

 not be the result of chance, cannot rest upon any arbitrary reasons. It 

 must stand upon great social grounds; and therefore it is very perti- 

 nent to inquire what those social grounds are. 



I therefore invite this Tribunal to accompany me in a somewhat larger 

 inquiry, very i)ertinent to the matter which is now before them, — an 

 inquiry as ]>road as the social interest of all nations, which this Tribunal 

 is supi)Osed to represent. 



The Pri<:sident. You want to take us into a discussion of socialist 

 theories or principles! 



Mr. Carter. I do not ol)ject to discussing- socialist theories, provided 

 they are pertinent, and 1 can reduce them into some brief compass. 



The President's question reminds me of an observation of one of his 

 countrymen, called illustrious by his friends, and, 1 su])|)ose, denounced 

 as notorious by his enemies. It was the Frenchman Prudhon, who said 

 that i)ro])eity is robbery; and he was right. Property is robbery, 

 unless you can defend it on some great social grounds, and support it 

 upon the basis of great social benefits. If you can show that it is 

 necessary to society, necessary to order, necessary to civilization, and 

 necessary to i)rogress then you can defend it. Otherwise, it is robbery. 



What is property! It is sometimes said to be the right to the exclu- 

 sive enjoymeut of a thing; but that rather indicates the jural right 

 which belongs to it and is attached to it, and not the thing itself. 



